*Fiction — January 21, 2021
My New Life
The Bathers, 1884, William Adolphe Bouguereau, Art Institute of Chicago
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Sometimes I wonder, is this it? and I’ll look around at all of the modern luxuries that keep me alive and think: probably. I have no reason to complain, I have everything I need. Last night Mona and I watched a documentary about the impossibility of our planet—the strange alchemy that created life, my life, my one and only. Billions of years of molecular replication, mutant algae clawing up from the depths of the ocean, consciousness forming out of soft tissue and nerves. Instead of thinking, what an exquisite machine, all I could think was, what a burden. What an act to follow. And also, is the heater on? I can barely feel it. When the 52-hertz whale swam across the screen, singing its lonely song, I cried. Mona cried too; not because of the whale, but because her mother is judgmental.
I can barely remember life before Mona. Sometimes I’ll get flashbacks from childhood of someone piercing my ears with a safety pin or a wayward neighborhood girl teaching me how to throw up, but I’m not sure if I just made that up or saw it on TV. I met her two summers ago at a backyard baby shower; my third of the month. Imagine a congregation of thirty or so women in neutral linen sets presenting their offerings of homemade banana bread and hemp diapers, shrieking at one another. Personally, I could never get past the image of being ripped apart, half-submerged in bathwater while being gently instructed to breathe through it. I worried motherhood was contagious, like a parasite or the way cohabitating women synchronize their menstrual cycles. Luckily, no one seemed to notice me, except for Tessa, who stared dead-eyed in my direction while she breastfed her newborn. It was so unnerving that at one point I mouthed What? and she finally turned her gaze back down toward her puffy nipple.
I was in the buffet line poking at the untouched vegan potato salad when Mona came in from behind for a hug, pressing her full weight into me. She mistook me for someone else, a friend. Instinctively, my shoulders softened and my knees buckled in a trust fall motion before I realized what was happening. When I turned around, I saw a tall woman in a tailored blue pant suit, practically levitating above a sea of homogenous white smocks. She had a strong jaw, fat lips, and a sturdy, Slavic nose. Her sculptural features were so striking that they eclipsed any of her other minor imperfections: unkempt eyebrows overgrown from neglect, a constellation of chin acne or the splotch of melasma on her forehead. I felt as though I had been chosen; as if she had come to usher me into my new life moments before my old one imploded in on itself. She released me and introduced herself, then pointed out the woman she’d mistaken me for who was refilling ice into a bucket off in the distance. We looked nothing alike, but I felt a strange combination of hatred and gratitude for this woman and tried to assume her posture for the rest of the party, which was difficult since I had so little to go on.
We piled our plates with hard cheeses, baby carrots and globs of hummus, and took a seat in the mildly damp grass. I knew I liked her when she told me about her heavy period before I knew anything else about her — like what she did for a living or how she did that thing with her eyeliner, the way she made it smudge on purpose. She spoke in a soothing, unaffected monotone, which was a welcome reprieve from the shrill mating calls of new mothers manically trying to convince one another they were having the time of their lives. She lowered her voice to a whisper when talking about the other women, many of whom had worked with her at a now-defunct wellness brand for dogs. She described the cult-like conditions of the company; how employees were forced to attend wilderness retreats, where, sedated by CBD-infused teas, they sat cross-legged on colorful Mexican blankets and took turns sharing traumatic childhood experiences. Most of them shared benign stories of divorce and life-threatening allergies, so Mona decided to wow them with a made-up story about being molested by a stepbrother. She wanted to prove how easy it’d be to expose the perversity of their trauma Olympics, but mostly she was just bored. She had no cell phone reception all weekend and watched too many true crime procedurals to wander off on her own in the dark. When she finished, all of her teary-eyed coworkers snapped their fingers in gratitude. A week later, she got a key to her own private bathroom and a bouquet of tulips with a note that read: To a Warrior Goddess!!.
I swallowed a laugh and nearly choked on a cracker. I was so relieved to be talking about anything other than intermittent fasting or my Enneagram number that I quickly offered up my most embarrassing qualities, beginning with my chronic night sweats and fear of birds. She agreed; most birds were untrustworthy. With each confession I felt lighter, somehow absolved. She listened attentively as I told her about my incurable sadness, how it’s taken on new gradients this year; sharper edges that sometimes left me breathless. I wondered aloud if it was just one of those things, like getting older, how fault lines suddenly appear across your neck or how your lower back hurts for no reason. She reassured me that it’s likely hormonal and no big deal; then complained about the disproportionate size of her left breast compared to her right and her popcorn addiction, as if those problems were categorically similar. Sometimes I wonder if her problems are even real at all. My worst fear is that she’s making them up, just to relate. Actually, my worst fear is being eaten alive. I don’t know where it came from, but I think about it often.
—
The lonely whale song played through the credits, and it reminded me of a recurring nightmare I’d been having. Normally, I wouldn’t have mentioned it, but unlike most people, Mona loved hearing about dreams and translating their hidden symbolic meanings. In this one, my husband Liam and I are always on the beach. The midday sun burns bright, but I’m fine because my body is covered in a thick frosting of sunscreen. I let it sit until it’s caked on and hardened like a full body cast, like a paper mâché shell. He asks for the sunscreen, but I’ve used it all up, so I tell him he doesn’t need it. I tell him he’s overreacting, and that he should get a little color. He shrugs and returns to his book as the sun proceeds to set the earth ablaze. Birds drop from the sky leaving trails of smoke. Beachgoers boil alive in an ocean of flames. I look over and notice big chunks of Liam’s skin cracking and melting, exposing muscle, fat and internal organs. He asks again, “You sure I don’t need any?” His legs have burnt down to the bone. A rotting smell sits heavy in the air. “I’m positive, honey,” I say from under an umbrella, “You’re building a base.” He rubs his face, wiping the remains of cartilage from his nose to reveal a bare skull. Smoke starts to rise from the top of his head as his brain cooks. He sighs, unable to read the words on the page, “I don’t feel right,” he says, and I tell him he’s dehydrated. I pass him a bottle of water and he’s so thankful, so moved by the gesture. “Leave some for me!” I say to his remains, now a pile of charred bones and a pair of flip flops. I made that last part up just to impress her with my creativity. As with any recurring dream, there are subtle variations: sometimes I’ll see a tsunami in the distance, or a swarm of killer bees, but the essence of it remains: willful endangerment. I know I’m doing it, but I can’t stop.
I’ll wake up soaked through the sheets with a guilt that doesn’t belong to me and the only way to rid myself of it is to repent by being extra nice to him in waking life. I’ll do anything; I’ll open my eyes when we have sex and I won’t even do that thing where I look away and imagine his brother. When he shaves his chest in the bathroom and gets little hairs all over my toothbrush, I’ll just blow them off, I won’t make a big deal over it. And when he tells me we’re going out with his boring work friends, I won’t protest, I’ll just say “party time!” in a sing-songy voice. I’ll be so accommodating, like a perfect angel.
“Dreams about beaches usually mean good things are coming your way,” Mona said, lazily stretching herself out like a cat on my sofa, “Want to hear something worse?” she asked. Before I could answer she said, “I cheated on Greg, sort of.”
She and Greg had only been married for a year. He had classic movie star features but a little more gaunt and mournful. His eyes were sallow, like someone with secrets, a troubled person. In this way, I understood him. He clung to her self-assuredness the way I did. He was so handsome that I could never look him in the eye for too long, and instead I rested my gaze on the hairless space between his brows. The few times I did look, I fought the inappropriate urge to cry.
“What’s sort of?” I asked.
“I made an online dating profile as a joke, just to see.”
“To see what?”
“I don’t know, to see how it works,” she said.
Mona would do these sorts of things on occasion: slip out of her own life just to know what it would feel like. She was always in on the joke and treated it like some kind of performance art. Always one step removed to inoculate her from consequence. She drew philosophical guidance from all manner of suicidal poets, cult leaders and controversial feminist critics to justify her worldview, “Woman is nature and nature is unknowable. Therefore woman is unknowable to herself and a threat to men,” she explained. She believed that nature was inherently violent, and society was an oppressive form of spiritual castration. Acting on her impulses was her way of reclaiming her humanity. All of her compelling theories about womanhood made perfect sense in the moment but would leave me confused once I left her orbit. I felt impassioned and manic, but I couldn’t explain why.
Her escapist impulses led her to a short-lived career as a Mukbang Camgirl, where she ate massive amounts of cereal at the request of her subscribers, then a devout Catholic as research for a role in a movie she would one day write and star in, but since I’ve known her, she’s mellowed out. Her exploration is mostly confined to her internal world, using chemically altered states to achieve ego annihilation and get closer to God. Like that one time she called me after taking a tab of acid in the bathroom stall at work to report that her boss Leonard was in fact her son in a past life. Then she laughed for ten minutes straight while I stayed on the line, loading the dishwasher. “I can see it all, and it’s perfect. It’s all perfect,” she said.
“So, you met someone?” I asked.
“Dylan. Yes. I told him I was just looking for friends and he said that was great because he was too, so we agreed to meet as friends in the parking lot behind Rosewood Plaza.” She paused, adding, “People do that, you know. They meet friends online.”
“I believe you,” I said.
“He didn’t look like his photos,” she laughed.
“They never do!” I added, not that I had any idea. I met Liam at the gym during a period of my life when I thought getting abs was an attainable goal. He would idle on the elliptical behind me and whenever I turned around, he pretended to be on his phone. It went on like this for a year before he ever talked to me. I hated being constantly watched, constantly monitored. I felt so exposed, but I was in the best shape of my life. Finally, one night, he followed me home. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was his way of flirting with me.
She went on to describe the encounter; how young Dylan actually was, how his gangly body swam in a stretched cotton t-shirt and basketball shorts; how his car smelled like body spray and fruity nicotine. When she got in the car, he looked straight ahead as though he’d just been caught. Nothing happened, she swears, she just sat in the passenger seat and put her hand over his hand to calm him, as if she’d done this before, but she hadn’t, not with a teenager, god! She repeated the word “friend” in her mind like a mantra. He closed his eyes and guided her hand to his mouth, and she let him suck on her finger, whichever one, it didn’t matter, looking down at them, she felt they no longer belonged to her. That’s all he wanted to do, and who knows why. Maybe he was nervous, or maybe it was a dare, like one of those college hazing initiations. “Seduce a MILF challenge,” I read an article about it once. I pictured a beer-stained checklist. When it was over, she emerged from the car with her face beaming as she tried to recall certain details about her life, some anchor points to remind her of who she was. Greg, the last four digits of her social security number, if she believed in a god and if so, was he watching? Her mind was blank. All she could feel was the sound of her heartbeat synced up to the deep house music bassline blaring from his car as he drove away.
When she finished talking, I took a sip of my wine and looked at her fingernails. They were oblong-shaped and freshly manicured. I kept my face soft and expressionless. Being the keeper of her secrets was a role I took seriously because it meant no one in the world could know her like I did. I wanted to know more, like, did she like it and if she did, would she do it again? Was she going to leave Greg now? Upend her whole life?
“Ha!” She waved her hand as if swatting a fly then quickly changed the subject to last night’s episode of a reality dating show where contestants were blindfolded and taken to an undisclosed location somewhere remote and inhospitable to human life. “Lisa didn’t deserve to go, she was their best chance for survival,” she said, stuffing a fluff of store-bought sponge cake in her mouth. A crusty flake remained at the corner of her mouth and she just let it be. Nothing ever fazed her. Maybe that was it; the answer to everything. Let it be.
—
A few days later, I accompanied Liam to an upscale wine bar for his friend Quin’s birthday. When we arrived, Quin waved over at us to join the group in the reserved balcony area. He looked to be in his late forties with greyish hair and neatly trimmed stubble, which is to say, totally forgettable. Apparently we’d met before, but I couldn’t place him. Now that I’m married, I have a hard time remembering men’s faces. There is nothing that makes them stand out unless I guess if you were hideous, I’d probably remember you as a courtesy. Liam ordered our drinks and I listened politely as a circle of men discussed exotic trips they were about to take or had just returned from. Anytime someone spoke, I would smile and push air out of my nostrils in a low impact laugh. After a while, I couldn’t remember what I was doing there. Everything lost its meaning and all I could think was: don’t touch anyone’s penis—don’t do it. Imagine what would happen if you did, like right now. Think about anything else. Look up at the ceiling tiles. What is that, distressed tin? Elegant choice. Very modern. But once I thought it, I couldn’t stop. I fixed my gaze on the varietals of black dress pants before me. They all looked so vulnerable, so up for grabs; concealed only by a thin layer of fabric. I imagined them as windchimes waiting to be struck. The impulse wasn’t sexual, it was destructive. I just stood there, not touching anyone’s penis, quietly frightened by who I was and what I was capable of.
On the drive home, I didn’t mention penises, but I did ask what the point of it all was, not just the socializing or the drinking per se, but this whole business of being alive. Liam ignored me and instead asked if I could hear it, that churning sound the car is making. He told me it’s been doing that for weeks now and he can’t figure it out. I wanted to tell him that I no longer loved him but not to take it personally because I don’t love anything, besides sleep and the feeling of having my hair professionally washed. I knew well before he began driving erratically up the winding, narrow roads towards our home that he had very little to offer me in the emotions department. He was going through his own thing: rapid hair loss. All I could say was: it’s very masculine or, I can finally see your face.
We pulled up to our building, a converted motel lined in drooping banana plants designed to confuse us into thinking we were living at a luxury resort. I bought it for the last couple of years, but now I see it, most of the plants are dying. “Someone should water these,” I said to no one. It was the closest I’d ever felt to being rich. Liam made just enough money for the both of us as a web developer for an accounting software startup but he spends it on the dumbest things. For my birthday last year, he handed me a printed certificate. He’d bought me a star. I’d asked him for a new computer.
Right after we walked in, Liam turned on the TV and began working on a pile of pistachio nuts left out on the coffee table. He doesn’t just crack them open, he sucks on the shells and spits them out like a cowboy, looking so pleased with himself, so proud. I pulled out my phone to read a text from Mona. It was a link to poorly photoshopped photos of celebrities that exaggerated their hips and butts and made their torsos look deformed. We replenished our thread constantly with inspirational quotes and questions we could easily find out for ourselves, like: should you eat salmon skin? How many years until the sun explodes? Through it, we explored the edges of our stranger impulses and secret thoughts; I told her about the vegetables I found most erotic and she made a list of conditions she thinks people are just making up. ADHD, for example, and Lyme Disease. I stood next to Liam when I felt him grab my free hand and plop it on the back of his neck, signaling a request for a massage. I remained standing while I half-heartedly clawed at his back while he made little whimpering sounds to express his enjoyment. He was like a baby animal; I fell for it every time.
“Your hands are magic,” he said.
I pressed my thumb hard into his shoulder meat. I worried he might be right. What if they were magic? I’d never used them to their full potential. I’d never thought to before. Liam took my hand and guided it down to his crotch where a hard mound had bloomed between folds of raw denim. He looked up at me with a big smile, like a child, proudly presenting his macaroni art, like he’d been waiting to show it to me all night. I kept my hand limp. Sensing my hesitation, he clarified his intent by unzipping his pants and taking his bare penis out from its complex cotton boxer flap and leaving it there for me to admire, or, tend to. There it was, pink and unselfconscious. I didn’t want it. My urge to touch had very little to do with actual penises and almost nothing to do with his penis specifically, especially now that it had been splayed out so clinically, like an umbilical cord, like a human heart. It was such an unusual looking appendage or a mollusk, the kind of thing that belonged on ice or under a shell at the bottom of the sea. What I wanted didn’t want me back. What I wanted won’t even see me coming. I patted his bald spot. “My stomach hurts,” I said. “I’m going to throw up.” I told him I’d be back and went to the bathroom.
I sat down on the cool toilet seat and silently contemplated the ebb and flow of our marriage, the big and small ways a person could change. Liam got sober last year and spends most of his time cycling in a group of Lycra-clad men with sculpted calves and father wounds. The one time I rode my bike with him he sped ahead of me to show off how fast he could go. I could see him in the distance practicing wheelies while I labored over each pedal uphill. He was different now, like a new man. I wanted so badly to be new too, but he says I’m not allowed to attend meetings if I don’t have a problem. His problem was contained like a country with clear borders, while mine was more like a cluster of hundreds of uninhabitable islands. I didn’t know how to explain this to him.
I returned to the living room to find Liam with his pants back on, legs crossed in defiance. I sat on the edge of the sofa and lit a match for a vanilla scented candle on the coffee table. I held it up for a moment and watched the soft orange glow expand as the matchstick withered and curled. For a brief second, I imagined what might happen if I tossed it on the floor, how quickly our cheap high pile Ikea rug would be engulfed in flames. I imagined the white noise of soccer fans chanting in unison: Let it burn! I waited until the flame seared the tip of my thumb and I blew it out. I was so spooked, I let out a fake laugh.
“What?” Liam asked.
“What,” I said. “Nothing, I’m just tired.”
My heart was racing with exhilaration. I left the room and opened the freezer to feel the cool air on my face. I did my meditative breathing exercises and tried not to think, but it was impossible. Try not thinking about a blue dot. See? I didn’t want to die; I wasn’t even a reckless person. I had high hopes for a future I could barely imagine in my present state. I even prayed sometimes when I got food poisoning to ask for forgiveness, just in case my Catholic mother was right about everything. I tried imagining Mona’s face once I told her. She was the only person who could declaw the thought; soften it into a story. She would think it was funny, and even if she didn’t, she would still say “you’re so funny” and those words alone would reassure me.
—
The next morning, I looked over at Liam’s swollen sleep face and it restored me to a place of deep gratitude. He slept on his back with his mouth slightly ajar and whistling from sleep apnea. He looked like a large baby; so pale and helpless. Most mornings would start like this, with the hope that my cells had regenerated, and I had improved overnight. I quietly got out of bed and started picking dirty socks and underwear off the floor and organizing them in a neat pile, then watered the houseplants to make up for who I had become, or who I had been this whole time, plus aging. I thought that if he woke up to a spotless apartment, he would forgive me for sobbing uncontrollably throughout the night. He doesn’t understand what I mean when I say it relaxes me. Let him sleep, I whispered to the invisible child we decided not to have so we could spend more time working on ourselves. It was his idea, and Mona says if you think about it, it’s the most romantic thing in the world. He wanted me all to himself.
I quickly got changed and left to meet Mona for breakfast at our favorite nearby diner. She was already sitting at a booth waiting for me when I arrived. The seats were sticky and smelled of bleach, but the wholesome country kitchen ambiance filled me with misplaced nostalgia for a simpler time.
“You’re late,” she said, scanning the giant, laminate menu.
“Sorry, I took a detour across the playground and got distracted. There were so many kids running around, more than usual. There were balloons tied to the fence. I started doing that thing where I try to pick out the child who looks the most like me, you know, one that could pass as my own,” I said, tightening my loose ponytail. “It’d have to be a quiet one, maybe a poor one, one that would appreciate a more comfortable life, but also a young one, incapable of forming long term memories,” I trailed off.
“Obviously I’m not serious,” I added, making nervous little origami shapes with my napkin.
“You’d be a great mother,” she said, not really getting the point. Then I told her about the penises, and how close I was to really touching them; how afraid I was.
“It’s not that weird,” she said. “I’ve done it.”
“What, touched one?”
“No, just sort of brushed my hand past one, over the pants so it seemed accidental.”
“Who was it?”
“I don’t know, some guy on the train.”
She barely looked up from her menu once. She looked occupied, as if her mind were elsewhere. I knew this would happen. I often worry that I’ve depleted her, or worse, she was finally bored of me. I honestly don’t know what I would do if that happened, I’d probably fall into a vegetative coma-like state, one step removed from death, only to wake to the sound of her voice. I tried my best to reciprocate by letting her talk about whatever she wanted for as long as she wanted, then find ways to agree with her. Like how feminism created incel culture or how money was a social construct. Or her weeks-long investigation into a stolen sweater that she later found in the backseat of her car. “Someone clearly moved it on purpose.” I assured her.
—
After breakfast, Mona went to work, and I walked directionless for a couple of blocks trying to figure out what to do. Most days, I’d wander to and from the café, park and home in a predictable geometric pattern that would make it so easy for someone to memorize my movements and kidnap me. No one did, but the point was, they could if they wanted to. The glare from the sun burned my eyes and my nose wouldn’t stop running. I was still adjusting to my new routine and my body wasn’t used to being in daylight. I’d lost my job three months ago on account of no longer showing up for it. “You were never a morning person,” Mona liked to say, and it was true. After six years of working in sales at a luxury bedding brand, my motivation to work had waned. Instead of writing quippy ad copy, all I could muster was a list of reasons not to get out of bed. I was also groped by my manager during a performance evaluation, but I figured it would be tough to prove since he is partially blind, so he could have just been looking for the light switch. Exhausted and overwhelmed by the ceremony of saying goodbye to my coworkers, I called in and told them I was very sick. I pictured them all weeping and devastated, struck by a grief they didn’t know they felt for me. But who will oversee the launch of washable rugs! they’d cry. Eventually, the calls stopped and they left me alone.
I had slowed my pace to a sidewalk shuffle when I noticed two men in the distance. One stood in line at an ATM and the other stood across the street at a bus stop, looking at his phone. The man at the ATM was older and wore a Bluetooth earpiece, while the younger man wore a loose-fitting basketball jersey. These men were total strangers, but my mind paired them together as two participants unwittingly starring in my fantasy. Stop, I thought to myself. Stop, stop, stop. But I couldn’t stop. In my head, they were already fighting, combat-style. Maybe the one guy preferred the rival basketball team, who cares. The point was they were punching and kicking each other, blood oozing from their teeth and noses, as they took turns grunting like tennis players. Eventually, the younger one managed to pin the older one onto the ground. Why are you like this? Fine, let’s say the older one called a truce and wrapped his arms around the younger one, patting his back in reconciliation. He lets his hands remain on his back as if to give him a hug. Ok, the end. But then surprised, the younger one, more eager and unselfconscious initiates a kiss. A passionate, muscular one. The mutual shock is so cataclysmic, so outside the laws of their agreed upon universe that the only reasonable response is submission, or death. Oh my god. Slowly, a crowd forms around them to watch, and how could you not watch? The watchers move in a little closer, touching the men as if gathered in worship. I bit down on the inside of my cheek and continued walking until they were out of view and unharmed.
I continued walking a few more blocks, then I sat down on an open bench to collect myself and gave a friendly smile to passersby like a normal person would. As I bent down, I felt my wallet tumble out of my jacket pocket. They were those decorative triangle pockets that sat under my armpits making them unreachable and useless. I looked down at the wallet and had an idea. I could empty it and throw it a few feet away to see if someone would take it. It was a harmless experiment to prove what I believed to be true: that it wasn’t just me. At our core, everyone was rotten. Some were worse than other, of course. But we were all animals, guided by impulses that had been muzzled by morality; our true selves forced to recede into the subconscious, which causes cancer. Mona sent me a Ted Talk about it once. I tossed the wallet and waited to see what would happen. A young couple walked by, followed by a conga line of kindergarteners led by two women wearing soft sweaters and whistles. No one touched it. Finally, a shoeless woman carrying a trash bag half-filled with empty beer cans and water bottles walked over and picked it up. My cheeks flushed with righteous relief. Aha!
“Is this yours, Miss?” she asked, presenting it to me.
“Oh yeah.” I responded, examining it closely. “Thanks.”
“No prob,” she said, looking sleepy, almost bored by her own gesture.
She wandered off and I watched her from afar, sitting alone under a tree. I suspected she might be homeless, but quickly told myself it was unlikely given how young she looked. She was probably doing community service or cleaning up after a big party. Yes, a birthday party! Everyone offered to help out, but she insisted they go home; she would handle it. That had to be it. I winced until the girl became a shape and that shape became none of my business. A nausea warmed my chest with what I understood to be shame for what I abandoned in order to live: the whole ugly world and everyone in it.
I got up and kept walking. I followed the sound of birds screaming and trails of exhaust pipes billowing smoke from idle cars like fog machines, in search of life. My own life, or some version of it I could cobble together in the next few hours. I checked my phone to see if Mona had called or texted but she hadn’t, she was still at work. I tried not to think about her life at work, the problems she solved, the people who envied her, the omnipotent authority she had over her interns. I could look for a new job, I thought. I needed something to occupy my mind. I relaxed my shoulders with relief over contemplating this very big decision. To prepare, I could come up with a list of skills and corresponding jobs that best suited those skills. I thought of my strong sense of smell, how that could be useful, given the right circumstances. Or my ability to sit for long stretches of time. I would also need tools: pens, a notebook and so forth. I spotted a corner store and wandered in to see if they sold stationary. The store was empty except for an older man in his sixties who was slouching in front of the performance water cooler. From where I stood, I could see the outline of his bulge through his athletic shorts. The bulge had an unusual arc to it, and at one point I thought I saw it shift as if to wave hello. Without hesitating, I walked toward him and slid by, letting my hand brush against his crotch, feeling the soft hump of flesh beneath as I passed. From there, I kept walking to the travel section in the next aisle, examining toothpaste and baby wipes with intense focus.
After a while, I couldn’t tell if he even noticed, maybe I did it wrong—not enough force. I forgot about the notebook entirely and poured coffee into a paper cup and brought it to the cashier, pretending like nothing ever happened. I watched as the cashier effortlessly scooped up change with her long, claw-shaped acrylic nails. She seemed skilled, as if she’d spent her entire life practicing. Her elegant finger work hypnotized me and I nearly forgot about the man until I turned and noticed he was standing behind me. In the light, his face looked older, bloodshot eyes and bad skin with big pinprick pores and a network of broken veins around his nose. A blue Gatorade rested on a deep scar that snaked along his forearm and bubbled at his wrist. I mumbled “sorry” under my breath, not for earlier, but a more general sorry you give to a stranger for no reason.
When I walked out into the parking lot, I didn’t feel like a new woman at all; I felt the same, maybe even a little worse. I quietly rehearsed how I would tell Mona about it so that I could discharge it from my mind and move on. But I had no time—the man approached me, waving.
“Hi,” he said, somewhat shyly. From up close, I could tell he was trouble. He smelled like yeast, like something had fermented inside of him.
“Hello,” I said politely, and walked away. It took about twenty steps before I realized he was following me, or just walking in the same direction. I didn’t want to make any assumptions even though part of me knew it was bad; I could feel it. Parts of my body began shutting down prematurely in preparation for the end. My eyelids grew heavy and I so badly wanted to stop and lie down in the grass.
When I looked behind me, I could see him also looking back as if to pretend someone was following him, or us; like we were in this together. I tried to pick up the pace to distance myself from that assumption. I looked around in disbelief of how average the day was; how no one seemed to notice what was happening. A city bus whirred around the corner, a mother pushed a stroller past me, forcing me briefly onto the grass. I considered screaming help! but I didn’t think anyone would. I heard a woman scream for help once before and I did nothing. I just stood there waiting for it to pass like a fire alarm. What was I going to do about it? Several men stood nearby with their arms vigilantly crossed, but none of them meant it. No one helped her, they just wanted a show. A man in a slow-moving vehicle just followed her down the street, taunting her, alternating between sweet apologetic pleas to violent threats. She appeared to be missing a shoe. I didn’t stick around long enough to see what happened.
I could have called someone, sure, but I wouldn’t know where to direct them and I couldn’t afford to stop and retrieve my phone from my bag. The man picked up the pace to beat a yellow light but then kept running, as if he had just discovered running was an option. I too began to run, at first quickly, then slowed myself down to a more manageable, long-distance pace. At a certain point, I forgot I was being chased and it just felt like exercise. I ran across a busy intersection and once I reached the other end, I could see him in the distance: he was bent over, resting against his knees, squeezing his abdomen in pain. I could see his body expanding and contracting with air. He’d given up. He couldn’t go any farther.
Once the light turned red, I kept running; I didn’t want to stop. My body was humming with caffeine and adrenaline. Pedestrians moved out of my way, groups of tourists and families separated on the sidewalk to clear the path as if they could all tell, I was running for my life. Not my old life, but my new life that had just begun. My body whooshed past the sushi restaurant that gave me food poisoning, past the laundromat, and the sidewalk cafe where Liam refuses to tip because a computer takes your order. After several blocks, I took a left towards Mona’s apartment and spotted her car parked in the driveway. She was home.
My heartbeat rang loudly in my ears as I tried to explain to her what happened. I couldn’t catch my breath.
“What? Who?” she asked, trying to read my lips.
“I did it,” I said.
“Did what?” she asked.
“But then he chased me!” I huffed.
“Who chased you?”
“I got away!” I said, trembling. I hadn’t noticed my eyes welling up with tears until I blinked them away and she absorbed them with her sleeve.
“You sure you lost him?”
“I’m sure,” I said, really believing it.
“You’ve gotta be more careful next time!” she said, scooping my hair from my face and loosely twisting it in a bun. The moment she let go, it unraveled; chunks of it falling into my mouth. I let it stick to my spit, I didn’t brush it off.
I was bludgeoned by those words next time. There would be a next time. We both knew it. She said she was late for yoga and had to go but to call her later. I stayed on her front step a little while longer, trying to calm myself, trying to breathe long, deep breaths. I thought about calling Liam, but he hated the phone and we promised not to call each other unless someone died. And I hadn’t died; I was more alive than I’d ever been. Instead, I got up and walked back in search of the man, hoping to find him, hoping to accept whatever might happen once I did. It didn’t even feel like a choice. I lived in a world of consequence and it was stupid to think otherwise. I walked slowly and deliberately in the direction of my fate, paying attention to everything I could. I saw a billboard for a movie about a woman who falls in love with a dolphin. No one understands their love. Below it, a husky woman wearing oversized headphones was dancing to a song only she could hear. Anytime someone honked, she performed a raise-the-roof gesture in appreciation. On the next block, a teenager sold fruit behind a multicolored umbrella. The boy was playing a game on his phone and every time he won a little song would play. Towering palms lined the street and despite the wind, they wouldn’t budge. When I reached the intersection, he was gone. Of course he was.
Originally published in No Tokens Issue No. 9. View full issue & more.